New Writing

Two UEA alumnae have been longlisted for the biennial SI Leeds Literary Prize, which recognises unpublished fiction by UK-based Black and Asian women. Laura Fish is nominated for her novel Lying Perfectly Still and Divya Ghelani for her novel Night School. Laura graduated from the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 2002 and from the PhD in Creative and Critical Writing in 2007. Her first novel, Flight of Black Swans, was published by Duckworth in 1995, while her second novel, Strange Music, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2008 and longlisted for the Orange Prize. Lying Perfectly Still was previously longlisted for the SI Leeds Literary Prize in 2018 and 2020. Laura teaches at the University of Northumbria. Divya (pictured) graduated from the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 2007 and subsequently gained an MPhil in Literary Studies from the University of Hong Kong. She has been the recipient of commissions and awards from the University of Leicester Centre from New Writing, Writing East Midlands, the Literary Consultancy, the Word Factory and Arts Council England, and has published her stories in BareLit Anthology, Litro: India, and Too Asian, Not Asian Enough, among others. Her novel Runaway was longlisted for the 2016 Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers’ Award and the 2016 SI Leeds Literary Prize. Night School was previously longlisted for the 2020 Bath Novel Award. Divya lives in Berlin, where she teaches for The Reader Berlin.